by Raul Menchaca
CIENFUEGOS, CUBA, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- "Like father, like son" - although the members of Sarmiento family live in Cumanayagua, their fame for producing good-quality organic honey has spread far beyond the small town.
Pedro, and his sons Robeisy and Billy Sander, make up a family that has been devoted to beekeeping for more than 20 years, a tradition that Pedro's father began decades ago in the Escambray mountains, about 250 km southeast of Havana.
Together, the three men have 34 apiaries with over 600 beehives, which they care for in a very total organic way, without using chemicals anywhere nearby.
Robeisy, 41, holds a university degree in physical education, but in 2002, he left his job and followed in his father's footsteps as a beekeeper.
"We increased the number of hives and I decided to go to help the old man and devote myself entirely to the world of bees," he recalls.
A few years later, Billy Sander gave up his boxing aspirations for a similar career change.
Now the father has 12 hives, and each son takes care of 11 more. Their expertise allows them to obtain over 100kg of honey per hive, twice the national average.
Every year, the family sells about 60 tons of honey to the Provincial Beekeeping Company, from where they are sent to CubaExport to be sold overseas, mostly to the European Union.
According to the quality of the honey, the family is paid between 14,000-15,000 U.S. dollars per ton, which has brought them prosperity.
However, apiculture is hard work, demanding the men travel for kilometers across remote mountainous areas every day. Sadly, Pedro has now fallen ill, meaning his two sons have taken over his beehives.
"Their success is mainly due to the discipline they maintain, the use of strict management techniques and the care with which they perform their work," says the head beekeeper in Cienfuegos province, Alberto Aguila.
Aguila emphasizes the fact that beekeeping has long been a family tradition in the area, being passed down from generation to generation, as in the case of the Sarmientos.
"I did not inherit my father's hives, I did not even learn from him, but I have his work with the bees recorded deep inside my memory," Pedro tells Xinhua as he recalls his start in the business.
The arrival of the "Special Period," a euphemism with which Cubans refer to the economic crisis of the early 1990s, plunged the country into precarious conditions and pushed many people to find alternative ways to feed their families.
Without ceasing to teach history, Pedro set up his first beehives and gradually increased his knowledge and production, but always without beehives chemical additives.
He became one of the best beekeepers in the territory but acknowledges his sons are surpassing him.
"At this point in my life, I am proud of them. I got sick but even before, they had learned so much that they had surpassed me in beekeeping, in the handling of hives, in breeding, in everything," he proudly explains.
The fact that Robeisy and Billy Sander are now consecrated beekeepers does not set Pedro's mind at rest. He now dreams that some of his six grandchildren will also take on the challenge.
"I hope some of them follow in their grandfather's footsteps," he says, as he scans the photos of his grandchildren decorating the living room.
